Uni entry barriers falling

Getting into university has never been easier, thanks to open-access policies designed to meet the federal government’s raised enrolment targets.

Victorian students received their Australian Tertiary Admission Rank, the score used for university admissions, on Monday while more than 54,000 NSW students will receive their results on Thursday.

An ATAR is a number between zero and 99.95 that ranks students against their peers.

Places for the most sought-after degrees in prestigious universities depend on a near-perfect score.

But students with poorer results are increasingly able to take advantage of lower barriers to entry to university.

In fact, the sharpest enrolment rises have been among applicants who have comparatively low ATARs, a trend confirmed by a new analysis of Victorian admissions data released on Tuesday.

Applicants with an ATAR below 50 had a one in three chance of receiving an offer in 2011, compared with one in five in 2007.

Richard James, a professor of higher education at the University of Melbourne and lead author of the admissions study, said questions would inevitably be raised about the quality of students entering university.

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But more important than entry standards were graduate outcomes, he said.

“Offers have gone up most steeply for the lower ATAR bands, particularly below 50 or 60," Professor James said. “For universities that are taking in students with lower levels of traditional academic preparedness, the question is what are they doing to support those students."

To meet demand for high-level skills and deal with disadvantage, the federal government wants 40 per cent of Australians aged between 25 and 34 to have a bachelor’s degree or higher by 2025.

To allow universities to meet the target, restrictions on enrolments have been lifted entirely, resulting in an enrolment bonanza in recent years.

The report, prepared for the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre, says offer rates increased for all students between 2007 and 2011, with an extra 14,000 places made available.

But offers rose most significantly for applicants with an ATAR below 60, “reflecting the greater willingness and capacity of universities to make offers to students with lower levels of school achievement".

Meanwhile, offer rates for students with ATARs of greater than 70 reached more than 90 per cent, which the report’s authors believe may mean the market has reached saturation point.

Some vice-chancellors are questioning the need for ATARs at all.

University of Ballarat vice-chancellor
David Battersby
said ATARs provided a snapshot of achievement at one particular point, which made them of limited value.

Further, research showed ATARs were not a good predictor of success at university, he said.

“Other than in selected courses around medicine and some of the law courses, what you’ve seen is the driving down of the ATAR," Professor Battersby said.

“It is a measure but there are a whole lot of other measures, not the least of which are motivation and aspiration."

The VTAC report’s findings are similar to those of an analysis conducted by the Group of Eight long-established universities earlier this year. It found offers to applicants with lower ATARs accounted for nearly two-thirds of growth in 2008-11. Offers to students with ATARs above 70 accounted for 38 per cent of growth.

University of Western Sydney pro vice-chancellor (education) Kerri-Lee Krause said there were many entry points to university other than an ATAR.

“I think the name of the game is pathways and looking at all your choices," Professor Krause said.

“When students get the ATAR results and there may be disappointment I think the first thing is to not give up and the second thing is to say, what are my options?"

In Victoria, the average ATAR for female students was 66.02. For males it was 64.00.

Males outnumbered females at the highest level of 99.05, with 25 males and 12 females receiving the top rank in the state.